A few weeks ago, Fred Thompson exited the race for President. In the wake of that decision, the FredHeads and the members of DraftFredThompson.com engaged in a whole lot of soul-searching and vigorous discussion as to what to do next. Fred's candidacy may have come to an end, but our faith in the principles that originally drew us to Fred was as strong as ever.

The product of that soul-searching and vigorous discussion is Conservatives for the Advancement of the Reagan Coalition, a new organization formed to advance the key conservative principles articulated by men like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and Fred Thompson.

Of course, there are plenty of places on the 'net to discuss Reaganite principles. While we'll certainly continue to do that, we will at the same time be moving forward with our plan to pound the pavement and raise the funds to ELECT candidates who share our principles and DEFEAT candidates who don't. If you share our faith in those principles, and have an interest in working to get them put into practice, we invite you to JOIN US.

Goldwater? He was an icon in his day, but he completely rejected the “social conservative” leg of the conservative stool. He was a raving pro-abort by the end. I would leave his name out of these things.

Fred endorsed the presumptive nominee, in a bid for Party unity, exactly as Romney had done. Fred didn't say a thing supporting McCain, until the primaries had reached a point where his nomination was fairly certain.

He was always a pro-abort. Both his wives were Planned Barrenhood leaders in Arizona. He was really a Libertarian, not a Conservative as we term it today. His 1980 Democrat opponent, Bill Schulz, was more Conservative than he was (and he nearly beat Goldwater, losing by only 1%, even as Reagan, whom Goldwater hated, carried AZ by a 32%+ landslide). :-\

Pretty much EVERY Republican of ANY standing has endorsed John McCain: He’s the presumptive GOP standard-bearer. What do you expect them to do? Even former President George H.W. Bush has endorsed McCain. It’s a done deal, Huckabee hasn’t got a prayer. Do you really think that a life-long Republican like Fred is going to remain neutral in the face of two Saul Alinsky acolytes as the remaining Democrats vying for the nomination? Here’s more on Alinsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky

There will be a time that each and everyone of the former candidates will endorse and back John McCain if he is the nominee. Even your favorite. There is only one exception and that is Paul but he will be against anyone but himself anyway. But for the rest of you, be careful with your criticism, because your candidate may be the next to get behind McCain for the sake of beating Obama or Hillary.

I’m a Fredhead still sulking a little over him dropping out to early and my 2nd choice did not do much better, so now that we are down to just McCain, I have to ask myself, who would rather turn the military over to; McCain, Clinton, or Obama?

Two of the above names would destroy the military as an effective fighting force by the sheer number of trained soldiers who would get out as soon as they could. They will be replaced by young people just looking for a job in the poor economy that certainly will come with a quasi-socialist government. Having served in the Navy under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan I have seen this first hand. Under Jimmy Carter, FTN was very popular graffiti found on the bulkheads of my ship, the stalls in the heads, and at the top of letters the sailors sent home. Im not going to spell it out but you know what FTN stands for. When Reagan took over this attitude changed and we had pride once again, and re-enlistments went way up, and that foul graffiti disappeared.

If McCain is our nominee, as much as I dislike him I will vote for him for the sake of the military alone.

 I for one want the "republican party" to just die. If Juan MxCain is going to be sold to us as "he is a conservative, really, just ask him, he will tell you" is high time to pull the plug on the pubs. Let the Dems take the blame for ALL of the crap they get into. No more republican derangement. Just let the Dems drown in their own s**t.

Lets go to Fred and start with something simple and straightforward.

The Thompson PAC for true conservatives. Call it T-PACC. Thompson Political Action Committee for Conservatism. Invite in Duncan and Tom. Others as they prove themselves through documented performance, not a bunch of election campaign lies. And build from there.

Lots of folks say that Fred “endorsed” McCain. I did not feel that Fred’s statement was an endorsement. When someone says, “I endorse......” that would be an endorsement. When someone says, “It is time to rally behind the nominee”, I believe that is said for the party to get behind the nominee. I am sure Fred would have said the same thing no matter whom the nominee happened to be. You will also notice that Fred said nothing until EVERYONE was saying that McCain IS the nominee. Just so happens, he still has to win more delegates to actually be the nominee.

Thanks for posting this. I just signed on. I was into “FredHead” principles, before there was a “FredHead” group. This sounds like a good way to support the ideas, without necessarily being caught up in the personalities.

More than anything, conservatives in the GOP need a “farm team” where we can bring up new candidates and build them up for higher positions over time. Our bench has been weak for some time now, which is what put us in the bad position we are in now.

Fred DID endorse McCain in 2000, then went on to support George W. Bush, because he was the nominee. Even with that, the majority of the stuff for which folks here don't like McCain came around AFTER 2000, with the exception of McCain-Feingold, and Fred supported that because he was disgusted with the way folks could hide their support of a candidate, and voters wouldn't know from whom a candidate was getting most of his support.

If Fred was supportive of McCain this year, why go through all the hassle to announce and run for office himself? If he thought McCain was doing the right things from the start, wouldn't he have just saved himself the trouble and endorsed him from the beginning? As it is, Fred didn't formally endorse McCain, the man, he just called for folks to line up behind the presumptive nominee so that we could beat the Democrats. I don't think Fred will be sitting out the election because who he considered the best candidate didn't win the nomination for the Republicans.

Back to acting again? Oh well, he was a good comic relief while he puttered around instead of running. A good guy who should have stayed in the Tenn. area running for the Senate again. We shall not see him again in our time.

I’m glad to hear it also. I have become somewhat disengaged since FRED left the race. McCain is not my favorite candidate...but we must vote in this election. Staying home and watching the dems win is not the answer. We have to work within. Elect as many Conservatives to the House and Senate as possible and diminish the “moderate” RINOs power.

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